


Spectral Dating

by GenerallyHuxurious (GallifreyanOmnishambles)



Series: Huxurious Huxloween [22]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dating, Deliberately Under Tagged, Ghosts, Haunting, M/M, Matchmaking, Palpatine is Extra, Paranormal Investigators, Surprise Pairing, seance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 03:39:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8385763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GallifreyanOmnishambles/pseuds/GenerallyHuxurious
Summary: Set in the Eldritch Effect verse. Hux and Kylo first met Mitaka the Lonely Ghost back in 'Bed and Breakfast'. Now they're doing their best to help him out...For Huxloween day 26





	

The library at Coruscant House had been a surprise to Kylo the first time he saw it and, frankly, many of the times after. It wasn’t exactly in keeping with what you would expect from a stately home, or a man of Sheev Palpatine’s advanced years and high social status.

Given that the property itself was mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, and could be proven to have been in the family since the early 17th Century- plus the Addams Family vibe that seemed to ebb and flow with its owner moods- Kylo had definitely been expected something more… classic. He’d been expecting balconies and ladders attached to the shelves that moved on casters, worn leather armchairs and heavy drapes, dust motes and rare book collections kept behind glass. He’d anticipated a room that smelled of brandy and wood fires and ancient paper. 

Instead he found the 1980s. The entire decade crystallised and distilled into a space of monochrome high-gloss glass and brushed steel.

There were abstract neon lights. Every book shelf was covered with smoked glass to maintain the minimalist lines of the room. The few empty spaces between the shelves were filled with Patrick Nagel and Keith Haring prints. And where Kylo had expected to see buttoned leather Chesterfield couches there were Le Corbusier armchairs, one of which Hux insisted had appeared in the original Maxell Cassette ad campaign.

The oddest addition to this very odd room was the massive angular swivel chair that looked like a science fiction mash up of a throne and a porter’s chair. 

It was exactly the sort of chair a 1980s’ corporate villain might have used, and as such the wizened old man in a bathrobe currently occupying it seemed more than a little out of place.

Kylo shifted uneasily in his Le Corbusier chair. His legs were far too long to comfortably sit in something so low and a part of his psyche objected to the subordinate position it placed him in. Being literally looked down upon by those oddly red eyes was unsettling to say the least.

For his part Hux seemed entirely comfortable, sitting with perfect but relaxed posture as he did his best to butter up this font of local historical gossip. It wasn’t going well, but Donal wasn’t going to let a little thing like that spoil his appearance. 

“You’re asking a lot of questions, boy,” the old man wheezed testily, “what exactly does it matter to you which residents of this parish engaged in carnal sins? Are the pair of you intending to stage a reenactment?”

Kylo spontaneously flushed to the roots of his hair. That anyone related to him would say something like that out loud… but his _ grandfather _ -in-law! It didn’t bear thinking about…

“No, grandpa, nothing like that, though we will of course take it under advisement.” Hux said, his tone radiating innocence. “Why, are you upset you didn’t think of it yourself?”

In the nerve wracking silence that followed Kylo seriously wondered how a person could tell if they’d swallowed their own tongue with fright. Had Hux gone mad?

It was hard to tell whether the sound that followed the silence was made more or less terrifying by the realisation that it was supposed to be laughter. 

“I merely wished to prevent you wasting your time on endeavours that have already been achieved.” Sheev answered once his strangely choking cackle died away.

The meaning of that sentence took a while to parse and Kylo had to bite his lip to keep the disgusted expression off his face. Whatever Palpatine had looked like in his far distant youth Kylo didn’t want to contemplate the sex life of a man who now resembled the host of  _ Tales From The Crypt.  _

“Now, out with it boy or you will find my patience is not infinite.”

Hux glanced briefly around the room. 

“Of course, I apologise for interrupting your hectic schedule…”

“Watch your tongue!”

“Yes, grandpa…”

Worried that they were about to be dismissed, Kylo cut in. “We’re looking for any gay…”

“Or bisexual!”

“Men who love men?” He suggested, to which Hux nodded, “Any men who had an interest in other men who died in this area. Or in London, or anywhere really if you can give us either the location where they died or were buried.”

Sheev’s face shifted, the many wrinkles rearranging themselves to hint that an eyebrow might have been raised.

“If you’re intending to invite them to join you, I can tell you now that it won’t…”

“No!” Hux cut him off with a momentarily horrified look. “No… no, we’re… hoping to attempt some séances for our blog, that’s like a digital magazine…”

“An advanced age does not equal a diminished intelligence, boy!”

“Yes, yes, of course, gran…”

“Get out.”

“Yes grandpa.”

“You’ll have a list by the end of the week.”

* * *

Kylo had to hurry to catch up with Hux in the dim, cobweb strewn hallway. He didn't particularly want to get left behind. It had taken him three attempts to get out of that damned armchair with Sheev Palpatine leering at him the entire time and it had made him rather edgy.

“You should have just shown him the watch.”

“Nope, thats a terrible idea.”

“Why? If he’d just spoken to Dopheld he’d have understood our reasons immediately!”

“Oh yes, right ‘hello grandfather here’s a pornographic watch being haunted by a friend of ours who’d quite like to get laid now, if at all possible.’” He said sarcastically, pitching his voice to a cracked whine as he continued, “‘let me see it boy. Oh yes, what a fine example of a spitroast, here let me put it in my pocket… Watch? What watch? I never saw a watch.’ And then poor Dopheld’s stuck in his noisome pocket for the next century or two. A terrible idea. No, we’ll just wait for the list and hope he doesn't just fuck us around.”

* * *

“Look Dopheld, I don't want to pressure you, but if you could at least  _ try _ to talk to this one before you reject him out of hand, that’d be just greeeeaaat.” Hux said with a sigh as he set up the candles and ouija board for the thirteenth time that week. “Today's guy supposedly built this place, invented some kind of super efficient machine, then got murdered by his boyfriend. So if you can just get through the initial meeting you might find you have something in common.”

“Really, Hux? ‘You got murdered for greed, I got murdered for greed, we both like peen, let's make out’?” Kylo said in a stage whisper.

Hux shrugged. “Better than nothing.” 

They’d exhausted all four graveyards within walking distance of the house in the first night, with Dopheld declaring all the men too be shoddy in their upkeep and rough in their manners. The six spirits they’d located in London were either far too modern or far too old with the exception of one Lord John Grey who was from the correct time period but too much of an officer. At that point Hux may have thrown the board across the room in frustration.

Leaving behind a trail of failures they’d followed his grandfather’s notes North until they’d finally found themselves sitting in a converted textile mill in an apartment they’d rented for the weekend via AirBnB. It seemed like the easiest way to get into the property that Sheev had mentioned as a likely death site for someone from the right period. According to Twitter it was either haunted or plagued with plumbing problems so it had been cheap enough. 

Dopheld waved his hand as if the huge favour the others were doing him was just a matter of course.

“It is not my fault that there are no attractive ghosts in Eng… oh… oh my.” He trailed off, suddenly blushing a darker shade of grey. “Guten Abend, wie geht’s?”

There was a serious faced man sitting at the dining table. He was dressed in soft moss green, wore his hair short and seemed surprisingly substantial. If it hadn’t been for the fact that one of his knees passed through the table leg Hux might not have realised he was dead. 

“A Prussian? That’s novel.” 

“Uh.. Nein, I was from a town in Landgrafschaft Hessen-Kassel. My name is Dopheld Mitaka.” He replied with wide eyes.

“Tiaan Jerjerrod. G efreut , Ihre Bekanntschaft zu machen.”

Dopheld actually managed to turn slightly pink. “Oh, well, the pleasure is all mine, Tiaan.”

At that point Hux and Kylo shared a look. 

“Right, Dopper, we’re off to the pub, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

As he followed Donal down the stairs Kylo said thoughtfully, “but Hux,  _ is _ there anything you wouldn’t do?”

They were most of the way through their second round of beers before Hux conceided, “I probably wouldn’t do oviposition again. Twice is enough.”

Kylo stared at him. Then reached for his phone.

“No Kylo. If you haven’t heard of it, don’t google it.”

* * *

“Dopper, it isn’t that I don’t trust the both of you to housesit for us, I’m just saying we get enough noise complaints as it is…”

“Not my fault, General!” Kylo shouted from the bathroom.

“It’s at least 60% your fault, my mouth’s usually full!” Hux yelled back. “ _ Anyway _ , I’m just asking you to  _ try _ to keep it down with the shagging, because the car won’t be in the garage and the landlord might think we’re subletting.”

“You can trust us Donal,” Tiaan said primly from the couch, “I’m looking forward to all the American television ‘Pheld has been telling about.”

“Thank you.” Hux nodded as he placed the remote between Dopheld’s watch and Tiaan’s bloodsoaked foundation stone.  _ Two murder victims finding love in the afterlife, _ he thought,  _ there’s hope for everyone yet. _ “But do make sure you turn it off before sunrise, we’re not printing money in here.”

“Oh my gods Hux you sound like someone’s dad!!”

“Shut. Up. Kylo!”


End file.
